HQ Player

[RubenV]

Anyone using HQplayer on Windows Server 2012 (an by any change with AO)? If so, which WS2012 should I go with? The R2 Essentials edition? I would like to use Roon (with Tidal and HQplayer) on a i7 6700k system to upsample everything to DSD512 and use NAA on an WS2012 audio pc. Any tips/hints regarding the server version and perhaps Audiophile Optimizer as well?

[RubenV]

I use Server Essentials with AO on both my HQP and NAA PCs. I don't believe there are any sonic differences between Essentials and regular Server R2.

 

That is good to hear. I presume you let AO take care of the "P" preparation (with the help of the service tool) of Essentials? Do you use Roon as well?

[RubenV]

Yes I use AO and Essentials in Minimal Server mode on the HQP pc and Core mode on the NAA pc. On the HQP pc I run Roon server.

 

Note that run NAA in Core mode requires some additional steps. Check out this post:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f28-highend-audiopc-sponsored/anyone-able-get-naa-working-core-mode-29677/#post577684

 

Awesome, many thanks! I will try this out tomorrow and follow your and clipper's suggestions.

[RubenV]

Awesome, many thanks! I will try this out tomorrow and follow your and clipper's suggestions.

Unfortunately, no luck. I did another fresh install of WS2012R2 Essentials and even downloaded AO again fresh. The background clearly says Essentials, AO also recognises the OS as Essentials but the Service Tool 2.00 does not display the "P" option to prepare Essentials the right way. Any suggestions?

[RubenV]

Have you asked Phil?

 

Yes, I've emailed him yesterday. But I presume he is on holiday or something like that. So I just continue to try other things. Just finished the first two steps of this: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f28-highend-audiopc-sponsored/%5Bhow-%5D-install-hqplayer-windows-server-2012-r2-30776/ and installed 199 updates, let's see if this works

[RubenV]

Have you asked Phil?

 

The steps I took seem to work, HQplayer and Roonserver are opening without errors and I can find the Roonserver with my laptop (which I will use as remote). Now I have to install NAA on my audio pc. Is there any guide for that?

[RubenV]

Great to hear. For NAA just run the executable but remember to install the Run Time as mentioned on the HQP website.

 

On Windows, Microsoft runtime is required, in case you get error message about missing DLL, you can download the necessary runtime here.

Thanks! I am rolling back to GUI mode on the audio pc as we speak, so I can get rid off the old driver, install the new one + NAA and runtime. It takes a while though haha

[RubenV]

That is precisely why I dont update HQP or NAA very often. I wait until a major release before upgrading because going back and forth to GUI mode is just painful.

 

Dont forget the steps I posted yesterday to get NAA working in Core mode.

Yes it is getting quite complex now. From Roon on my laptop I can select the HQPlayer output. But in HQPlayer I do not see any devices listed under Tools>Network Audio Adapter Naming.

 

The control PC (with HQPlayer running) uses the onboard LAN to communicate with the internet, while a second network card is solely setup for communication with the Audio PC (which has NAA running). I've used the settings from the AO manual to only select IPv4 and giving it a static adress. This used to work with JPlay, never had any problems. However I can't find the NAA device. Does this only work with IPv6?

 

And when I look under settings>device settings I can select NAA for the back-end but the Device box under it stays empty.

[RubenV]

When I was using JPlay I did the same thing as you and it also worked fine. I have never tried this same direct connection with HQP and NAA. It may be best to ask how to do this in the NAA thread.

Thanks I will have a look over there. Just when I was so close, disaster struck and now my audio pc is on an infinite boot loop and I can't even proper boot it from a USB-stick in order to perform a fresh install haha. This keeps amazing me... I will have to take my cf card reader out to deploy an image on it, another setback.

[RubenV]

Wow you are having bad luck indeed. I have never run into any problems installing Server R2, HQP, AO, or Roon. Good idea to just do a fresh wipe. You cant even get into the BIOS during start up?

After the boot loop the fresh wipe seemed the smartest to do. However, I couldn't select the usb drive in the bios itself. I managed to start from it to choose boot options before you enter the bios but after loading the files I got the same boot loop (or it took ages and I was to impatient). I already had opened the case of my regular pc this morning because the lsi raidcontroller failed and was stuck on the boot screen (more bad luck) so I took it out in order to download the correct ws2012 ISO. I tried the PPA cf reader on different sata ports and allthough the lights on the card did light up, it didn't show up as a drive. Sata is hot swappable so I presume the PPA cf card reader died after three years of heavy usage. So tomorrow I will try the machine I managed to install today as a single pc so I can listen to music again. The NAA pc has to wait untill a new ssd will be delivered.

[RubenV]

Do you have a lot of PPA gear? I have heard other people having issues.

Yeah I got quite some PPA goodies around but so far only the cf card reader stopped working.

 

Today I tried to get HQPlayer working on a single machine. Unfortunately, it seems that the 120W PPA lpsu is not powerfull enough for the 6700K. I also tried it with the USB card and SSD both running from batteries, but as soon as I hit the play button to play local stored files (PCM converted to DSD) the pc powers down. A bit strange, since a stress test on the 6700K shows a maximum power draw of 100W (link for test: Intel Skylake Power And Temperature Results). Would 20W not be enough for a mini-ITX mobo? I doubt it...

 

After this debacle I am now running HQplayer on my normal pc (i7 6950x intel extreme octa) and installed the single pc as NAA. It works, but even with upsampling everything to DSD512 it doesn't sounded as good as my previous dual-pc setup with just AO and JPlay. The regular pc outputs a lot of electronical noise which you can hear during quiet passages or between tracks. So I guess, I will look for a beefier psu...

[RubenV]

Anyone here using JPlay in a dual setup in combination with HQplayer? And if so, do you run HQPlayer only on the control pc, or do you need to run NAA on the audio pc as well? And could this dual pc configuration pass on DSD512?

[RubenV]

Doing just that: HQPlayer on (only) control PC into JPLAY dual PC setup. NAA is not needed as JPLAY takes care of the communication between both PC's. So far my DSD limit with the combination JPLAY + Combo384 Amanero DAC is DSD128 DoP. Without JPLAY (directly into the DAC) I can play DSD256 raw.

 

Thanks bodiebill, I have the same Combo384 Amanero in my dac. Since I want to be able to use DSD512 it seems to me that JPlay then is not an option, because of the limit of DSD128 DoP.

[RubenV]

Indeed. Although I must add that in my setup DSD128 via JPLAY sounds better than DSD256 via NAA.

Not nice to think that I am not using the DSD256 upgrade of my Lampizator, but I have to believe my ears in spite of the theory and/or $$$ spent :-|

 

I feel your pain. I will try JPlay with DSD128 vs. without JPlay with DSD512. Quite a bummer that JPlay limits it on DSD128...

[RubenV]

I don't think it is just JPLAY, but also the DAC. I have heard some have been successful playing DSD256 via JPLAY, provided the DAC can take DSD256 in DoP format.

 

Yeah, I am not blaming JPlay. It is just a pitty in general. If the Amanero board would accept higher PCM rates DoP would still work with higher DSD rates.

 

JPlay doesn't use ASIO for output, but instead kernel streaming or WASAPI?

I've been using kernel streaming only for JPlay in the past. To get Tidal working (which I now do with Roon and HQPlayer) I needed to use ASIOBridge.

[RubenV]

Will NAA work when you use a dual pc-setup in the following configuration? LAN enters control pc through the LAN port on the motherboard (and it has HQPlayer installed), the control pc has a second LAN port (on a pci-card) which connects to audio pc (NAA) in order to establish a direct link.

 

 

If I use the same settings as for the JPlay dual streamer setup would HQPlayer be able to find the NAA pc?

[RubenV]

Absolutely yes. In my dual pc system I have the same settings and I can use Jplay and HQPlayer. If you have some problem try to choose "Network Adapter" instead of "Network Adapter IPV6", in Backend HQP settings.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

Thanks for your reply, really appreciate it Can't wait to test it out since my dedicated control pc is fanless. Hopefully more gains in terms of SQ are waiting.

[RubenV]

The issue is that the NAA PC wont be on the network so troubleshooting is more difficult. I dont have a monitor in my system so I rely on remote desktop to access both the HQP and NAA PC. Is the solution to bridge the networks? I dont think bridging works very well or is not possible in Server R2?

For me it is also not ideal, but fanless gives me the best SQ. If needed I roll out and hdmi cable and take the keyboard+mouse from my regular pc. That way I do not have to rely on remote desktop access.

[RubenV]

Anybody cam across the "Unable to contact IP driver. General failure." message?

 

From my control pc I can ping the IP adres of the audio pc (with NAA), Zero packages lost, everything 100%.

However, the other way around (pinging from the audio pc with NAA towards the control pc with HQPlayer) generates the message above.

 

If I start HQplayer (while NAA is already up and running) it can't find NAA?

 

I already tried "netsh int ip reset" but it failed. Any suggestions?

[RubenV]

I can't edit my post above but everything is working again. Strange since I just repeated the steps I tried dozen times before

[RubenV]

Just tried to upgrade my control pc from WS2012 to WS2016. Installing WS2016 went well, same for AO(beta) and HQPlayer. However, after installing the newest 3.18 HQPlayer desktop I can't find the NAA on the control pc.

 

(I didn't made any changes to the audio pc, which did function flawlessly before)

 

The control pc has 2 nic's, one onboard and one Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter pci card. If I turn on the Audio PC with NAA, NAA lists the correct IP address of the nic card (intel Gigabit). But I can't select the Amanero device under backend (which displays the NAA). The onboard nic on the control pc is for connecting to the router, and the onboard nic in the audio pc is directly attached to the Intel Gigabit nic in the control.

 

I suspect some settings are wrong on the Control-pc end. I have installed DevManView and see that both nic's are connected and not disabled. What else could I check to counter this problem?

[RubenV]

5 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Did You turn off any network settings via AO?  I'm not sure a direct private connection (NIC to NIC) is something HQPlayer can deal with without some sort of bridging.  But I am not an expert here.

 

No, I kept all network related settings open through AO.

[RubenV]

17 hours ago, tboooe said:

Are the two nics bridged?  When you were using Server 2012 did you have it Minimal Server or Core mode?  There is no Minimal Server mode in Server 2016 and bridged nics is not supported in Core mode.

 

I don't fully understand with you mean with "bridged". I was using WS2012 Core for the audio pc (this one is still up and running). For the control pc I used WS2012 with GUI.

When I start the control pc, I can see the correct IP address in NAA. However, I can't figure out how to adjust the settings for the network adapters on the control pc (I tried with DevManView).

 

13 hours ago, sig8 said:

I have dual port fiber NIC's in HQPC, and NAA, one port from each is connected to the switch, another is directly connected. I have disabled some services on the ports which are directly connected per AO manual. When HQPC connects to NAA, I see that the direct connection port is connecting based on the connection request IP address. This just happens. I did not try to do any bridging. This was originally set up to be a 2-pc Jplay machines, therefore I changed settings per AO manual.

 

I also get no selections under sample rate, just Auto, you have to play something and come back for selections to be available. I think just started with 3.18.

 

What are you using as OS? WS2012 or 2016? I also had the dual JPlay setup. But after buying a dac with a chipless dsd engine, I tried HQPlayer. What version of HQPlayer are you currently using? Do you suggest to roll back to another version?

[RubenV]

After struggeling a bit to get HQPlayer to work I detached the network cable between the control and audio pc, and connected the audio pc directly to the router, and tadaa: I could select the Amanero device and HQPlayer worked.

 

So there must be something wrong with the network settings I guess.

 

These are the current settings on the control pc (with dual nic and WS2016 core)

 

These are the settings of the audio pc (only one onboard nic, and running WS2012R2 core):

 

Should I enable DHCP for both nic's?

[RubenV]

24 minutes ago, ted_b said:

As I posted earlier, HQP NAA is not Jplay dual pc.  There is no control/audio pc setup with private nic-to-nic communication.  You need to bridge them in order to use it this way.  NAA needs to see the network.

 

Bridging is chatted about several places; start here maybe, first post, half way down:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/

 

 

Thanks Ted! I will try the instructions when I get home. Would this scenario also work with ws2016 on both machines, taking into account tboooe’s reaction regarding nic’s not being bridgeable in core mode on both systems.